Behind the scenes with Facebook’s new solar-powered Internet drone and laser technology

Facebook has made no bones about wanting to blanket the planet with Internet connectivity, and it’s developed a huge, solar-powered aircraft to help it do so.

The unmanned aircraft, called Aquila, has the wingspan of a Boeing 737, but weighs “about the third of a [Toyota] Prius car,” said Facebook vice president of infrastructure engineering Jay Parikh Thursday during a media event at Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park.

Aquila will be responsible for beaming Internet signals back to rural areas on Earth that lack the kind of communications infrastructure needed to maintain Internet connectivity. According to Parikh, 10% of the world’s population live in these rural areas—found in certain regions in Africa and India, among others—and are unable to access the web.

A small team of Facebook engineers in the U.K. spent 14 months building the plane. Facebook wouldn’t say how many employees were involved in the project.

Aquila’s wings are made of a type of material called carbon fiber. When the carbon fiber material undergoes a kind of heating process known as curing, it can become “stronger than steel for the same mass of material,” explained Facebook Connectivity Lab director Yael Maguire in a blog post. This material also accounts for why the drone is so light.

Facebook Connectivity Lab director Yael Maguire shows reporters a very light carbon fiber pod that’s part of the drone. It will house the drone’s batteries and motors. Credit: Vanian

Facebook plans to launch the plane into the sky with the help of a big balloon that will carry the aircraft to the stratosphere. There it will hover between altitudes at around 60,000 to 90,000 feet. At these altitudes, the aircraft will be far above the airspace where commercial airliners fly and free from storms or other weather disturbances, Parikh explained.

The Facebook team also covered Aquila with solar panels and fitted the craft with batteries and an electric motor so the plane can stay up in the sky for 3 months. Over that time the drone will beam the Internet down without interruptions or a need for refueling.

And when the plane does come back to the planet, Maguire told reporters that it “will land like a glider” because of its aerodynamic design.

While in the air, Aquila will be responsible for providing the Internet to people on Earth in a 50-kilometer radius. Small cellular towers and dishes will receive the signals sent by the aircraft and will convert those signals “into a Wi-Fi or LTE network that people can connect to with their cellphones and smartphones.” Maguire wrote in the post.

Facebook said it also achieved a breakthrough for the way data and information can be transferred from drone to drone. If Facebook flies multiple planes it could be able to cover much larger swaths of land.

Using laser communication technology, Facebook supposedly created a way to stream data between drones at a rate of ten gigabits per second, a speed that’s as fast as what fiber-optic services can provide to U.S. residents, such as those living in Minneapolis.

The breakthrough in laser communications is a result of the software-based networking advancements Facebook has been rolling out in its data centers, Parikh explained. Communication signals sent through the sky are so accurate, they can apparently “hit a dime from 11 miles a way,” said Maguire.

The accuracy is important if drones are to be able to send signals to and from each other, which would result in less Internet infrastructure needed to be built on the ground.

“This starts to look like a backbone of the Internet using lasers in the sky,” said Maguire.

Of course, it’s important to remember that Facebook is not close to launching these planes to power the Internet just yet. Facebook has only built one drone so far, with plans for more coming down the pipeline.

Parikh wouldn’t estimate when Facebook might plant to fly multiple drones over the Earth. He only said: “This will be an effort that we will invest in for many years to come.”

As of now, “the plan is to spend the second half of this year doing flight testing,” Parikh said.

Parikh also pushed back on a question implying that Facebook might only allow the Facebook website or certain websites to be sent to rural areas through its ambitious project. He said Facebook has no plans to become an Internet service provider. Instead, the goal is for Facebook to set up the aerial Internet infrastructure, and then let major carriers operate and distribute the web in a similar manner to how they do so on Earth, Parikh said.

The drone project was developed by Facebook’s Connectivity Lab, which contains former researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, among others. The lab is part of Facebook’s Internet.org initiative to bring the Internet to places where there is a lack of connectivity.

Major players involved in the telecommunications industry have signed on as partners of the Internet.org initiative, including Ericsson, Samsung, and Qualcomm.

Drone makes first legal doorstep delivery in milestone flight

It may not have been as long as a three billion mile trip to Pluto, but a small drone’s journey on Friday delivering medical supplies to a rural health clinic in Virginia was a milestone in its own right.

The successful delivery by a small pilotless aircraft operated by an Australian startup, Flirtey, made for the first time the federal government has legally allowed such a flight. The Federal Aviation Administration approved Flirtey to make the delivery as part of a joint venture called “Let’s Fly Wisely” between NASA, Virginia Tech university, several healthcare organizations in Virginia, and Flirtey, among others.

The delivery comes at a time when the FAA has been butting heads with Amazon AMZN and other companies interested in using drones to deliver products. Amazon, in particular, has been battling the FAA for approval to test drone deliveries, but it has complained the administration’s proposed drone regulations are too strict and hinder innovation of unmanned aircraft.

Amazon as well as pro-drone organizations like the Small UAV Coalition have submitted thousands of comments to the FAA regarding the changes in drone regulations they would like to see the administration make.

Under current rules, Amazon and other companies are all but prevented from making drone deliveries. Any company wanting to test drone flights can only do so during daytime and only as long as the aircraft remain in sight of its operator. Additionally, companies are not allowed to fly drones higher than 500 feet. Amazon and other companies are not expected to be able to launch commercial drone delivery operations until the regulations are finalized, which could come within a year from now.

It’s interesting to note that the FAA didn’t select Amazon to be involved in this particular mission. Instead, it went with relatively unknown startup that has recently expanded drone-flying operations to New Zealand, where government regulations are more lax.

Getting medical supplies to the poverty-stricken area of Virginia is apparently difficult because of its isolated location, so residents were eagerly waiting the results of Friday’s flight, NBC News reported. The region is one of six locations the FAA has approved for drone research and testing.

The startup also expanded its operations to Nevada where it’s partnered up with the University of Nevada, Reno to research and develop commercial drone operations in the United States.

While the deliver of medical supplies in rural Virginia can be qualified as a success, it’s important to keep things in perspective.

This particular flight was a joint project involving multiple parties, NASA, a university, and a company that has a track record delivering shipments via drone. It does not mean that we are likely to see a boom in drone deliveries any time soon, because FAA drone rules are still being ironed out.

This particular project is more of a symbolic milestone, but a milestone nonetheless.

Hold fire! Shooting your neighbor’s drone could be a felony

Eric Joe, a resident of Modesto, Calif. has successfully sued his neighbor in small claims court for shooting down his drone while it was flying over Joe’s family residence. He was awarded $850 for the damaged equipment, according to Motherboard. While Joe attempted to peacefully resolve the matter between the two at first, he eventually filed a lawsuit after his neighbor, Brett McBay, refused to pay for the damages.

Though it’s not the first time a drone has been shot down, the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to charge anyone who has shot down a drone. However, the agency has classified drones as “aircraft,” which would mean that they would be under the same restrictions as other types of aircraft. Shooting one would therefore be a federal felony.

In Joe’s case, the judge immediately ruled in his favor because of McBay’s admission in an email exchange of shooting the drone, adding that,”McBay acted unreasonably in having his son shoot the drone down regardless of whether it was over his property or not.”

Though it’s not necessarily setting a precedent, the case is significant and will likely influence future similar incidents.

Boeing replaces CEO Jim McNerney

Boeing said on Tuesday that the aircraft manufacturer is replacing CEO Jim McNerney with the company’s current president and chief operating officer, Dennis Muilenburg.

After a decade in the top job at Boeing BA, McNerney will leave the CEO post but remain as chairman of the company’s board. Muilenburg will take over as chief executive on July 1, with McNerney remaining as an employee of the company until February. In a press release, Boeing said McNerney would stay with the company “to ensure a smooth transition.”

Muilenburg, who stepped into the COO role in 2013, has been with Boeing since he started as an intern in Seattle 30 years ago.

“As CEO, Dennis will bring a rich combination of management skills, customer focus, business and engineering acumen, a can-do spirit and the will to win. With a deep appreciation of our past accomplishments, and the energy and skill to drive those to come, he is well suited to lead our very talented Boeing team into its second century,” McNerney said of his successor in a statement.

Boeing’s stock, which is up more than 9% over the past year, fell in after-hours trading following the news of the CEO shake-up.

Why this major airline is departing JFK for good

United Airlines said Tuesday that it will stop running flights through New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on October 25, while bulking up its flights via Newark, N.J.

The airline has failed to post profits from its JFK routes over the past seven years, according to Reuters. United offered relatively few connections to other cities via JFK. By consolidating flights at Newark Liberty International Airport, United will look to offer more connection options to travelers flying on profitable transcontinental flights connecting the New York metro area with Los Angeles and San Francisco.

United, a unit of United Continental Holdings UAL, also noted that the move will bring the airline’s “Premium Service” Boeing 757 aircraft to Newark Liberty, boosting the number of the carrier’s “BusinessFirst” cabins available out of Newark by 44%. United also said the move also gives it the most round-trip seats available flying from Newark to Los Angeles and San Francisco (up to 10,000 round-trip seats daily).

United has agreed to exchange its flight slots at JFK with Delta Air Lines DAL in exchange for Delta’s slots at Newark. United will continue to fly dozens of daily flights out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

But when it comes to federal regulations, the private and public sector have yet to agree on rules for using drones, which puts a damper on the technology fully getting off the ground in the business world.

On Friday, Amazon AMZNsent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to complain about the FAA’s newly proposed drone regulations as being too harsh and a roadblock to its planned drone delivery service. Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy, wrote that the FAA should take into account the rapid advancement in drone technology in its rules. By overlooking new technical developments, Amazon is basically saying that the FAA is stifling innovation.

At the heart of the dispute is language in the rules that calls for drone operators to fly aircraft only within their line of sight. Such a requirement would effectively prohibit Amazon’s Prime Air service, a sci-fi initiative unveiled last year that would use drones to deliver online orders to customers in thirty minutes within ten miles of an Amazon fulfillment center.

Rather than ban drone deliveries, Amazon wants a regulatory system that would let it prove to the FAA that it’s safe to fly the machines at long distances, beyond the line of sight of its employees. Amazon’s letter echoes a similar note sent to the FAA by the Small UAV Coalition, a trade association focused on drones.

Last week, the group—whose members include Amazon, Google, and several new drone companies—sent a note to the FAA pointing out that countries the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Sweden, and Norway already allow drones to be flown beyond an operator’s line of sight.

Another sore point for Amazon is the FAA’s requirement that an operator only be allowed to fly one drone at a time. Again, Amazon wants the chance to prove to the FAA that it can do this safely rather than being prevented from doing it at all.

This is part of a long-running battle between Amazon and the FAA. For almost a year, they have been going back and forth about Amazon getting a permit to test its drones. In March, the FAA finally relented and allowed the e-commerce titan to test its drones under a series of restrictions, including only flying drones during the day and never above 400 feet. Amazon has complained about those limitations, and its recent letter to the FAA exemplifies its continued frustration.

Jonathan Evans, CEO of Skyward, a startup working on software for managing drone traffic, explained in an interview with Fortune that there’s disconnect between how the FAA wants to regulate drones and how it currently regulates aircraft like a standard Boeing 747. Because the FAA has decades of experience using airplane traffic control technology and relatively little experience with drone technology, the agency is being very careful about regulating drones.

Evan’s startup is creating a wireless network for drones that can keep track of them and help companies ensure that their drones are flying on government-approved routes, similar to how airplanes must fly through approved lanes in the sky. With the network, drone operators would be able to get up-to-date flight information like the outbreak of a forest fire that could cause regulators to set up emergency no-fly zones, Evans said.

“There hasn’t been a system like this that has been purpose-built for drones,” Evans said. He explained that technology for monitoring conventional aircraft flying at up to 30,000 feet is useless to drones, which he said are more akin to flying cell phones than small airplanes.

It’s technology like this that has put the FAA at a crossroads with drone companies over regulations. In one way, the type of networking technology that Skywards is developing would seem to address some of the FAA’s concerns about managing multiple drones that could fly far distances. Operators would be able to keep track of the machines similar to how air traffic controllers keep track airplanes.

Whether the FAA would be willing to entrust drones to such a network is unclear. The technology is still early in its development and hasn’t been implemented on a large scale.

Amazon AMZN is basically accusing the FAA getting in the way of innovation, not just for its drone delivery program, but also other companies. What Amazon and its allies envision is a sky filled with thousands of drone flying simultaneously without the need for scores of people to pilot each one individually.

It will be up to the FAA to determine whether Amazon, the Small UAV Coalition, and people who submitted 4,400 comments to the agency, made enough of a compelling argument to warrant altering the proposed drone rules. With the FAA expected to take roughly 18 to 24 months to sift through all of those notes, USA Today reports, expect a lot more back and forth between Amazon and the administration in the next year or so.

Germanwings crash raises concerns with Airbus cockpit design

The crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 on Tuesday sent a stark message that aircraft manufacturer Airbus needs to address issues with the design and layout of its cockpits.

The crash, along with others recently involving Airbus aircraft, show that it’s too easy for junior officers to take control of the plane. The cockpit door latching system, a major focus in Tuesday’s crash, should be reexamined, as it allows junior officers to deny reentry into the cockpit to anyone, even the captain of the aircraft. In addition, the dual joystick fly-by-wire control system remains troublesome as it allows junior pilots to override the actions of more senior pilots without them knowing, creating confusion that could bring down a jet.

Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, confirmed on Thursday that the crash of Flight 9525 was due to “deliberate” pilot error. Apparently, the junior pilot, Andreas Günter Lubitz, 27, was left alone in the cockpit while the senior pilot, Patrick Sonderheimer, left the cockpit, presumably to go to the bathroom. When Sonderheimer tried to get back into the cockpit, he was unable to gain entry. He is heard yelling for Lubitz to open the door on the flight’s cockpit voice recorder, which was analyzed by crash experts on Wednesday.

Sonderheimer tried to regain entry into the cockpit for 10 minutes while the plane was in a steady, yet sharp, descent downward.

Throughout the commotion, nothing was heard from inside the cockpit, except for Lubitz’s breathing, officials say. The last sounds on the recording were of the senior pilot trying to break the cockpit door down, followed by the screams of passengers right before the plane crashed on the side of a mountain in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

Officials say that the junior pilot used the flight management system to start the descent of the plane, which, at the altitude the flight was at, could only be done voluntarily. This has led officials to believe that the co-pilot deliberately set in motion the events that caused the crash.

Asked whether this was suicide, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said at an afternoon press conference, “I am not a lawyer. I am the CEO of a big company. If one person takes 149 people with him to death, it is not suicide.”

To be fair, we are waiting for the results of the flight’s data recorder, which records the pilots instructions sent to any electronic systems on an aircraft. It is conceivable that something may have happened to Lubitz after he activated the flight management system, such as a brain aneurysm, leaving him unconscious and unable to open the cockpit door for the other pilot.

If you are wondering how a senior pilot could be locked out of the cockpit, you’re in good company. Following the events of September 11, airlines were mandated to beef up cockpit security. Keys would no longer be allowed to access the cockpit amid fear that a terrorist could somehow wrestle them away from a flight attendant. On the Germanwings flight, the cockpit door was controlled by an electronic keypad located outside the cockpit as well as a switch located inside the cockpit in the center console.

On the A320, the model used for Germanwings Flight 9525, the locking switch in the cockpit can be toggled up or down. If the switch is up, the door will unlock. If it is left in the neutral (center) position, the door will be locked, as is required by law while in flight. When it is toggled down, the door locks as it does in the neutral position but it also prevents the use of the numerical keypad on the outside of the door to gain entry for five minutes. We don’t know for sure if the door was put in the locked position by Lubitz once the senior pilot left the cockpit, nor do we know if the senior pilot tried to gain entry into the cockpit using the digital keypad (officials say he just banged on the door).

But whether this was deliberate or an accident, the failsafesand the door locking system failed. It either locked the senior pilot out or locked the junior pilot in. An official from Airbus tells Fortune that it designed the door so that it can only be unlocked from inside the cockpit because it was mandatedto do so by the FAA following the events of September 11. But the lock switch is located in the cockpit and potential override procedures are not mandated by government authorities.

Airbus places the lock switch in the center console by default, which means that either pilot could accidentally toggle the switch if they collapsed for some reason. Airbus says that it offers airlines the choice of having the switch mounted either in the center console, as it is now by default, or mounted above the pilots on the ceiling of the aircraft. The ceiling position seems like a far more sensible place to put this switch to avoid accidentally toggling it.

The issue involving the placement of the lock switch isn’t unique to Airbus. Boeing, in its rival 737 aircraft, puts its door switch 10 centimeters away from the airplane’s rudder control button. The proximity of these items almost led to tragedy in 2011 when a junior pilot onboard an an All Nippon Airways flight accidentally toggled the rudder control button by mistake, thinking he was unlocking the door for the captain who had been on break. The sharp turn of the rudder caused the plane to violently roll on its axis and flyupside down—seriously. Luckily, no one died in this incident, but it could have easily ended very badly for everyone onboard.

While Boeing and Airbus share design concerns about the location of their locking buttons, Airbus alone uses a unique dual joystick flight controller that can be very dangerous in an emergency. The dual controllers are located on the sides of the aircraft—to the left of the captain, who normally occupies the left-hand seat, and to the right of the junior pilot, who normally occupies the right-hand seat.

These joysticks are problematic because they allow either pilot to move the aircraft’s pitch up and down or side to side without the other one knowing. That’s because the pilots’ bodies can obscure the movements being made by their hand on the joystick.

The placement of the joysticks became a major source of contention for Airbus in 2009, with the downing of Air France Flight 447, an Airbus 330 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. In this incident, the captain had left the cockpit to take a rest, leaving the first officer and junior pilot in charge of the aircraft (this aircraft had three pilots given the flight time and aircraft type). When the plane reached its cruising altitude over the Atlantic Ocean, its pitot tubes, which measure air speed and such, froze, rendering them useless. As a result, the autopilot was automatically switched off.

Pilots are not used to maneuvering a jet at such high altitudes, so both panicked when they were given control of the plane, especially the junior pilot. Fear of crashing caused the junior pilot to instantly push up on the joystick, pulling the nose upward. This caused the plane to stall and fall straight down like a rock. The captain came rushing into the cabin and was working with the first officer to try and stabilize the plane, but neither could understand why they were rapidly losing altitude. Then the junior pilot said in panic, “But I’ve had the stick back the whole time!” At that moment the captain realized that the junior pilot had been causing the stall and told him to let go, but it was already too late and the plane crashed into the ocean.

The location of these joysticks are a major source of contention among pilots. Some, like Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who famously landed an out-of-control Airbus on the Hudson River after it struck a flock of birds during takeoff, believes that such confusion wouldn’t have happened onboard a Boeing jet because the control wheels are larger and more obvious. The Boeing controls, called a yoke, look like two big steering wheels and sit directly in front of both pilots. If one pilot changes the pitch, the other would instantly know it, as the yoke in front of them would move.

Airbus officials tell Fortune that it would be wrong to conflate the issues that brought down Flight 447 with the apparently deliberate issues that brought down Flight 9525. But while the Airbus sidestick doesn’t seem to be an issue in the crash of Flight 9525, it is yet another example of how junior pilots with less experience can bring down a plane. Airbus said it believes younger pilots are just as capable as older pilots in handling an aircraft, given their extensive training by their employers.

Airbus can’t design a perfect cockpit, but it should design failsafes that prevent junior officers from taking control of aircraft at critical moments. For example, in addition to moving the lock button to the ceiling, the captain should also be able to enter a special code on the keypad outside the door, known only to him, which would allow him to immediately override the lock switch. Furthermore, junior pilots shouldn’t be allowed to control an aircraft without the captain or first officer knowing exactly what they are doing. This might involve relocating the side sticks to the center of the craft so that both pilots can easily see what the other is doing.

While it may turn out that Lubitz did indeed set the plane on a collision course with the French Alps, a great deal of information—namely, the flight data recorder—needs to be recovered and analyzed before making any conclusions. It is possible that the plane’s autopilot was knocked out in midflight, as what happened on Air France Flight 447, and Lubitz panicked and froze.

In any case, Lubitz should have never been allowed to lock himself into the cockpit, with no way for the captain to re-enter. New procedures requiring flight attendants to switch places with pilots who leave the cockpit are being implemented in airlines across Europe in the wake of this accident. That may help decrease the chances of such a scenario occurring again, but it’s far from a sure thing.

What happens if United Technologies unloads Sikorsky?

Last week, in a not-so-surprising move, United Technologies UTX announced that it is weighing whether to unload helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky—maker of such iconic aircraft as the U.S. Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk and the rotorcraft that transport the President of the United States. Divesting itself of Sikorsky makes sense for UTC. In a company that has cemented itself as a maker of sub-systems and components, Sikorsky is the only systems integrator in UTC’s portfolio. Meanwhile, demand from the U.S. military—Sikorsky’s single largest customer—has appreciably softened.

But the announcement has raised questions about what happens to a Sikorsky separated from UTC, fueling speculation that one of America’s largest helicopter manufacturers will likely be spun out, bought up by an American rival, or even snatched up by an overseas competitor. Last week UTC’s CEO Gregory Hayes did nothing to quash such rumors. At an analyst event, Hayes said Sikorsky is “just not quite as attractive as the rest of the businesses.” He also suggested that the company would be open to considering offers from a foreign buyer.

Who that buyer would be is unclear to the point that such a sale, especially to a foreign buyer, remains unlikely. Despite a good deal of churn in the rumor mill, considerations ranging from anti-trust regulations to taxes to simple cash-flow make Sikorsky either an unattractive or difficult acquisition target for the companies that otherwise might want to acquire Sikorsky’s contracts and technical know-how.

There are several reasons UTC would want to divest itself of Sikorsky, not least softening demand from military customers. As Hayes noted, Sikorsky doesn’t really fit with UTC’s core focus, but strong growth made it worth keeping around. That’s no longer the case. “You can keep a company if it’s out of line with your focus as long as it’s delivering double-digit growth,” says Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at aerospace and defense consultancy Teal Group. “But when that growth stops, you do what you can to move away.”

That growth has definitely slowed. The U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps.—two of Sikorsky’s (and the global helicopter market’s) most important customers—don’t have the money to modernize their fleets fast enough. Sikorsky did roughly $7.5 billion in sales last year, but netted only $219 million in profits. Its single-digit margins lag other divisions of UTC and could be a drag on any company that might acquire Sikorsky as well.

But should UTC go through with the divestiture as expected, an acquisition—especially a foreign acquisition—is unlikely. Potential buyers of Sikorsky include Boeing BA and Textron TXT in the U.S. and Airbus or Augusta Westland (a joint venture between Italy’s Finmeccanica and British multinational GKN) in Europe. But assuming either wants to pay up for Sikorsky’s slow near-term growth prospects, an acquisition by either Airbus or Boeing would likely face pushback from anti-trust regulators, analysts say. Other companies that might actually want Sikorsky’s technology portfolio, like Textron, don’t have the cash to buy it.

Couple that with the massive tax bill that such a sale would generate and the fact that Sikorsky’s existing military contracts—including those for a new Presidential helicopter—would likely move the Department of Defense to get involved in any foreign transaction, and the prospect of a major merger or acquisition grows dimmer still.

The most likely outcome: UTC spins out Sikorsky as a stand-alone company, one that makes some money but not a ton of money, at least in the near term. Sikorsky likely won’t be able to leverage its strong suite of next-gen helicopter technologies as demand for new rotorcraft remains low. But the U.S. Army does have a major initiative planned to modernize its helicopter fleet throughout the 2020s and 2030s, for which Sikorsky is competing. Until then, an independent Sikorsky will likely get by selling Black Hawks and civilian helicopters until global demand for rotorcraft improves.

This is the world’s smallest drone—and it’s kind of scary

Drones come in all dimensions, from the size of a lap dog to the monstrous ones flown by militaries. This one can fit in the palm of your hand.

Unbox Therapy posted a video on YouTube of what is claims to be world’s smallest drone, the Seresroad Cheerson CX-10:

This tiny drone can’t be flown outside because it is so small it would be blown away by wind, according to a report in BGR. Still, the blog points out, drones this small could potentially be useful for espionage. Or at least annoying your coworkers.

The hobbyist drone landscape has been getting increasingly competitive lately, with companies from DJI to Parrot all vying for customers’ business.

U.S. Air Force picks Boeing 747-8 to replace Air Force One

(Reuters) – The U.S. Air Force said on Wednesday it would use Boeing’s BA commercial 747-8 airliner to replace its current fleet of two Air Force One presidential aircraft, one of the most visible symbols of the United States.

The decision comes a month after Boeing said it would slow production of the four-engine 747-8 aircraft to 1.3 a month from 1.5 a month because of declining orders.

“The Boeing 747-8 is the only aircraft manufactured in the United States (that) when fully missionized meets the necessary capabilities established to execute the presidential support mission,” said Air Force Secretary Deborah James in a statement.

Boeing welcomed the Air Force’s decision to skip a competition and opt for the 747-8, citing its 50-year history of building presidential aircraft.

The Air Force said it intended to award a sole source contract to Boeing, but they must still negotiate a contract and the modifications needed to adapt the jet for presidential use.

The Air Force now operates two VC-25s, specially configured Boeing 747-200Bs. Details about the new contract, including cost, were not released.

It said it planned to purchase enough of the technical baseline to permit competition for maintenance during the plane’s planned 30-year life.

James said the Air Force One program would use proven technologies and commercially certified equipment to keep the program affordable.

The Air Force decision was widely expected since the only other suitable four-engine jet is the A380 built by Airbus in Toulouse, France.

The 747-8 is the only four-engine commercial jet Boeing makes, providing an extra margin of flight safety over the more standard twin-engine planes.

But the Air Force order for a few 747s might not extend the life of the 747 program, which has failed to capture much business in recent years.

Boeing was clearly trying to preserve production so it could fill the Air Force order, said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.

Now that the firm order is there, he said, it might be an opportunity for the program to end.

The double-decker plane entered service in 1970, undergoing a major overhaul in 2012, with new engines and a longer fuselage.

But last year, Boeing did not get orders for 747s, despite booking a record 1,432 net orders for commercial aircraft. At the end of 2014, Boeing had 36 unfilled orders for the plane, which lists at about $370 million.